President Someday
by Lynx Ryder
Summary: Who and what made T-Bag the man he is? An elaboration of known facts regarding his past.
1. Creation

A/N: I am a huge Prison Break fan, so it was somewhat inevitable that I would end up writing a fic. You won't find spoilers for the current season 4 but as this is an exploration of T-Bag's past there will be spoilers for season 1 and 2, at least. Please don't read if you're new to Prison Break because I really don't want to be responsible for giving anything away!

_--_

_Chapter One_ – Creation 

His mother was born a retard. Just one of those genetic mistakes, the doctor said when it became clear Audrey would never develop like a normal child. A miscopied gene sequence, a combination error, or maybe it had something to do with the Jack Daniels that Audrey's mother drank throughout her pregnancy to blank out the empty hours of her lonely life. Whatever the cause, Audrey's brain was permanently effected. She might have been loved, her gentle nature appreciated, her round, soft face adored, but instead she was shunned and ignored, bullied and belittled by her disappointed parents. Attention was deflected from her once a healthy son was born, the child they deserved, a child they could be proud of. In truth, their son was no healthier than their little girl but because he could speak and run and build towers of coloured blocks they poured their affection into him and Audrey was ignored. She became more creature than human, cowering in the corner, scurrying from room to room to avoid confrontation, barely speaking, hardly even there, but not everyone overlooked her.

Travis Bagwell was the kind of boy who liked to hit others. The problem was he was a skinny little thing and would invariably pick on someone twice his size. His propensity to stupidity and violence prevented any long-term friendships forming so he could never rely on any form of backup. As a result, it wasn't unusual for Travis to come home with a bloody nose or a black eye. His mother would roll her eyes and go back to her JD. His father would pretend not to notice, ever since Travis had started school and failed to live up to even the most modest of parental hopes Bagwell senior had been spending a lot more time out of the house and a lot less time with his family. It was left to Audrey to dab at the cuts with iodine and cotton wool. Sometimes Travis would lash out at her when the iodine stung but most of the time he was grateful. When he was in a good mood he would take her out to the lake, really just an oversized muddy puddle the kids used as a playground, and they would take it in turns to swing over the water on the rope that hung from one of the old trees. Audrey almost always fell in but she didn't mind because she liked Travis's gap toothed laugh and the way he would put his arm around her as they walked home. Of course they couldn't play together when any other kids were around, when his friends came over Travis would kick out at her and though he would never actually hit her Audrey's eyes would fill up with tears.

"She's a right moron your sister."

"Yeah," Travis would say and they would run upstairs laughing. Despite this, Audrey loved her brother and would often spend long periods of time tidying his room for no other reason than it made her feel closer to him. And her mother liked her to be helpful, it gave her more time to drink.

It was around the time of his sixteenth birthday that Travis's small scale violence began to increase in frequency. The reason was simple – he was frustrated. Every other boy he knew, or so it seemed, had had a girlfriend, even if it was just for one night. Jokes about sex were thrown around and anyone who hadn't done it became an outcast. Travis, in desperation, told everyone he had given it to Marleen which was a lie that could be seen through at once. Marleen's father owned the general store, he had a waxed black moustache and arms the size of Travis' whole body. Marleen, a pretty girl made prettier by the lack of competition, walked with her ponytailed head held high, confident in the knowledge that her father was somebody in this white trash town. She would never so much have wiped her nose on Travis let alone sleep with him. The other boys laughed at him and called him a fag. Travis, not knowing what else to do, ran home and locked himself in his room. After half an hour of furious masturbation he had an idea. His mother was out getting her hair done. After that she would go and buy groceries. She wouldn't be back for at least an hour. Travis didn't know where his father was but he'd been gone three weeks now and no one seemed to want to go looking for him. Only Audrey was in the house. When he called her name she came at once, her face shining with pleasure. He had been snapping at her lately, he had even slapped her face a couple of nights ago when she nearly walked in on him with his newly acquired porn magazine, but all of that had been forgotten. She entered the room slowly, her simple smile spreading wider with each step she took. She saw her brother, someone that she loved. He saw the only female creature he had access to.

How much Audrey understood of what happened to her is disputable. She knew enough to know that it was wrong and that she didn't like it but, on the other hand, it made Travis smile at her again. He even offered to take her to the lake but the hot summer sun had dried it up so that all that remained was a bowl of cracked brown earth. Later that year Travis left school with no qualifications to speak of. After trying unsuccessfully to find work in his home town, he decided to travel further afield. His mother wasn't sorry to see the back of him, his father had never returned, only Audrey cried to see him go.

Travis returned three years of alternating odd jobs and living rough later to find his mother dying in hospital. Audrey remained in the house, her clothes filthy, her hair matted. When she saw him she tried to say his name but the sounds were muffled and distorted from lack of use. She was so embarrassed that she ran upstairs and hid refusing to come down even when Travis heated a can of beans over the stove for dinner. Their mother died of liver failure leaving Travis the house and her very modest savings. Travis had already decided what he wanted to do with the money. After failing to make anything of his own life and being just smart enough to realise how brainless he really was, Travis had decided that he would let someone else do the living for him and for that he needed a son.

Sometimes Audrey tried to get him to stop but most of the time she lay perfectly still while he bumped and thrusted and tried to get her pregnant. He told her his grand plan, spelt it all out for her, told her it was their chance for a glorious future, but she didn't really understand her part in all of it. She couldn't put the grunting, ugly act that he performed on her and his talk of a baby in the same equation. She didn't understand that it would have to grow inside her before it could be born. Nor did she understand why it had to be her. Perhaps it was the similarity of the sperm and the egg that made the process take so long but after two years of enduring her brother's single minded rape, Audrey became pregnant.

Pregnancy was terrifying. Audrey couldn't read, she had never been taught, and she didn't have any friends to tell her what to expect. She had been very young when Travis had been born so she didn't remember her own mother swelling with life. Travis said there was no money to see a doctor so they had to do this alone. Audrey didn't like doctors anyway since they were the ones who told her she was ill and made her parents stop loving her. Fortunately two months before the baby made its violent way into the world Travis got himself a job loading trucks so there was enough money to have Audrey in hospital for the birth. She screamed almost continuously for five hours while Travis waited outside misspelling names on a scrap of paper. When a nurse asked him what he was doing he told her he was trying to think of a name that was special enough for his firstborn son.

"Is that right?" the nurse replied, an amused smile dimpling one cheek, "Let's have a think then. How about George?"

Travis shook his head. He would know when it was the right name, the perfect name.

"Ronald?"

"John?"

"Abraham?"

"Theodore?"

Travis' head shot up. _Theodore_. _Theodore Bagwell_.

"That's it."

And so the boy was christened Theodore thanks to the nurse's ability to recall the names of president's passed. Travis took him home wrapped in a hospital issue blanket and laid him down in the crib he had bought off one of the neighbours. For over an hour he stood there looking down at his beautiful baby boy hardly able to believe that his dream had come true. When Theodore started to cry Travis carried him over to where Audrey lay dazed and bruised.

"He's got to grow up big and strong," said Travis as he pressed the tiny baby to Audrey's swollen breast, "He's gonna be president someday."

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A/N: I'm not entirely sure how far I'm going to take this but I do know that it's not a one shot :). I would really appreciate your feedback so please leave a review if you feel like it. Thank you!


	2. Duplicity

A/N: More fun and games with the Bagwell family...

_Chapter Two_ – Duplicity 

Travis did not let go of his grand plan. His son _would_ be the President of the United States and everyone would know that he, Travis Bagwell, had done something worthwhile and important. Little Theodore was going to redeem the whole Bagwell family. The trouble was Travis didn't know the first thing about how someone got to be the president. In fact, if you had asked him, he would have been hard pressed to come up with the logical route for a doctor or a dentist or a teacher to take. As far as Travis was concerned these people were born into their roles, just as his son was born to being the leader of the free world. One thing Travis did know was that presidents didn't go around talking like the rest of the white trash Theodore was growing up with, they had proper learning, they were persuasively articulate (two words that Travis would have struggled to understand). To address this problem Travis made a special purchase for Theodore's third birthday. Most three year olds in the houses around the Bagwells' somewhat dilapidated dwelling were getting push bikes or big, colourful balls so they could learn to throw and catch. Theodore, who could neither read nor write being, despite it all, a normal three year old, received a thesaurus. Every night, when other mothers and fathers were reading nursery rhymes or fairy tales to their children, Travis would read him two or three pages from the leather bound thesaurus, stumbling and stuttering over every third word until the sounds swam through little Theo's head at night while he slept.

"You have to remember these words," Travis would say as he closed the book and placed it back on the shelf, "You gotta be smart, boy. Only smart men become president."

Theodore did not disappoint in that department. Whether due to his father's persistence with words or to his complete lack of stimulation at home, Theodore excelled in the classroom running rings around his pre-school classmates. The teacher's marvelled and engaged in numerous gossiping discussions in the staffroom where they ruled out any possibility of inherited talent.

"He'll burn out," said Mrs Tatler, a veteran of the pre-school circuit and only two years from retirement. It was the same thing she said whenever one of her pupils showed the slightest ounce of above average intelligence. The truth was, she didn't trust clever people, she didn't think it was right to know things all the time, and she certainly didn't like being smart mouthed by a precocious toddler.

"It's gotta be all him," said Mrs Foster, a kind faced young mum who was currently five months pregnant with her third, "His father…well, he's what my husband would call 'typical white trash'."

"What about his mum then?" chipped in Mr Jamison who loved to gossip just as much as the women, "Ol' Mr Bagwell couldn't get anyone else to sire him a child so he used his retarded sister."

"Mark!" cried Mrs Foster, appalled, "Please!"

But Mrs Foster's protests were drowned in a sea of truth. Everybody knew that Audrey Bagwell, the poor dear, was Theodore's mother and that his father, Audrey's brother, made very little attempt to deny it. So it was that Theodore, oblivious to the scandal of his very existence, was pitied and judged and watched wherever he went in his white trash town. Travis told him that people whispered behind their hands and looked away from him because they knew how clever he was, he might have even believed this himself, but it didn't take long for Theodore to become sensitive to the way people reacted to him. No child wants to be different.

Quite apart from the challenges of his home life, Theodore now had the trials and tribulations of school to deal with. He soon learned that utilising his full vocabulary within earshot of any of the boys in his class would lead to trouble. Far from being delighted to be confronted with a word they didn't understand like his father was, they seemed to take it as an insult that he should know anything that they didn't. Consequently, Theodore adapted, as we all do, becoming the boy his father wanted at home and the boy who wouldn't get beaten up at school. Being accepted within a group of peers presented problems of its own. Theodore Bagwell lived in a rough neighbourhood, the kind where broken windows and graffiti were so commonplace that the locals barely noticed any more. The older brothers of the boys Theodore went to school with stole cars at the weekend and then set them alight in deserted fields, whooping and hollering as the flames licked the dark sky. It became a badge of honour to have a run in with the police. Theodore was seven when he ran from the cops for the first time. He and his friends had been sitting on the bridge over the road and taking it in turns to throw stones down on the cars below. Ten points if you hit one, a hundred if you caused a crash. When Travis found out he struck his son with the back of his hand and shook him until the room lurched and span, but even as his father screamed and hollered at him Theodore knew he would do it again because that was what you did if you were a white trash kid from Alabama. Within two years he had an established criminal record for minor misdemeanours ranging from keying shop windows to covering the newly painted wall of the school canteen in thick black pen. The least Travis could have done was keep up his anti-crime stance but in a remarkably short time his anger made way for amusement.

"Boy's gotta have fun," he would say to the few he could call friends, "No harm in it." The way he saw it, rebellion was a normal part of growing up and surely even the president had done his fair share of harmless pranks. Theodore, who could now conduct whole conversations which could exclude his father with ease, would grow out of it. And maybe he would have done if circumstances had not forced his path.

The reason for Travis' acceptance of his son's delinquency was simple. Despite the negative effect of his peers when it came to the law, Theodore was still amazing his teachers. He worked hard to achieve this, something that he did, not because he enjoyed it particularly, but because his father's love seemed to be entirely dependent on his ability to achieve high grades. Any indication that he wasn't clever was met with sudden and surprising violence. Travis had even smashed a bottle over the head of someone in the local pub when they had insinuated that his son took after his mother in the intelligence department. And Theodore, brainwashed as he was from infancy, truly believed that there might be something to his father's wild talk of international politics.

"You'll never get there if you don't work, Theodore," his father would say as he placed the thesaurus with its now dog-eared pages on his son's lap. So Theodore worked hard because he was going to be president someday.

There has been precious little mention of Audrey in this account of Theodore's childhood years. Ever since the birth of her son, Audrey had retreated even further into the background. The unexpected and unexplained pain that had been labour and delivery had traumatised Audrey and poisoned her mind against her brother in a way repeated rape had never done. Travis found her resistant to even the most innocent of his advances. It didn't take long for him to learn to ignore her just as his mother and father had succeeded in doing. Theodore, as children do, accepted his mother's barely there presence in his life without question and, tragically, ignored her just as completely as his father. Not once did he reach out to her or share some new childish discovery. She cooked painfully simple meals and kept the house in a reasonable state but she did not try to hold the child she had carried within her, nor did she have any input into his emotional or intellectual education. As a result, the adult Theodore would retain precious few agreeable memories of his mother regarding her instead as one might regard a ghost, someone who was there but not there, and, whether it was right or wrong for him to judge her so, she became one of the many people who should have been there for him but wasn't, one of the many people he could blame.


	3. Synonyms

_Chapter Three_ – Synonyms 

"My mama told me not to give it out for free," said twelve year old Emily matter-of-factly, "A man's gotta provide."

And so it was that Theodore Bagwell began negotiations for his first kiss with the much admired Emily Jacobs. In the end it cost him five dollars, two packets of gum and one promise of eternal devotion which lasted less than a week when Emily caught him kissing Debra without paying her a penny. It was a period of enlightenment for the young Theodore who had previously seen girls as mere annoyances, nothing more. They weren't strong enough to join in the rough games of his friends and tended to band together to whisper and talk about things Theodore really had no interest in so he had pretty much ignored them, that is until Emily Jacobs arrived at school with her bright blonde hair drawn up into two bunches and her shiny black shoes so polished that all the other girls had been jealous. Her arrival prompted a change in Theodore's world view. Suddenly the half of the population he had been systematically overlooking came back within range. He even found himself noticing his mother who responded to this sudden attention by making an extra special effort to clean all the food from her hair and wearing clean aprons. Travis, who was not especially observant when it came to anything other than his son, saw through Theodore at once.

"You're becoming a man," he said happily, clapping his son on the shoulder, "A few short years and you'll be movin' all yer stuff into that big ol' White House."

Theodore found himself wondering whether girls would like him better if he lived in the White House. Immersed in innocent daydreams of Emily and her bright blonde hair Theodore did not see the way his father was looking at him across the table. Travis was responding to his son's sexual awakening by remembering his own. He remembered the frustration most of all, frustration that he had been able to suppress for a good long while now. Audrey, being wiser to Travis' looks than her son, scurried away. Travis barely noticed her leaving. His unkempt, unhappy sister was no longer an option.

It started like any other evening. Audrey had cooked something almost edible, Theodore had done his homework in front of the TV turning it off when he heard his father's key in the front door. Travis had shovelled his food into his mouth without thanking Audrey while Theodore answered questions about what he learnt at school that day. Theodore answered mechanically, bored of the routine. He was tired too, the previous night he had been up until past midnight working out an intricate plan for getting Emily to forgive him and to simultaneously get rid of Debra who had taken to following him like a lost puppy. His father's curiosity sated, Theodore disappeared into his room closing the door behind him. He was surprised when the door opened less than a minute later. Thinking it was his mother dropping off a pile of what would likely be unwashed, unironed clothes that she thought she had cleaned already, Theodore didn't bother looking up but it wasn't his mother, it was Travis.

Travis walked over to the bed and sat down next to his son. It seemed like only yesterday he had been reading the thesaurus (Travis was still absurdly proud of this purchase) to his son and now Theodore practically knew the whole thing off by heart.

"I'm right proud of you, Theodore," he said and he placed his hand on his son's knee. Theodore tensed. He had the horrible feeling that somehow his father had found out about the window he had broken at the weekend and was trying to trick him into making a confession, Theodore had not yet realised that such tactics required an intellect far greater than that which his father possessed. So preoccupied was he with these guilty thoughts that he didn't immediately notice his father's hand sliding up his leg but when hand met crotch the alarm bells went off. Theodore tried to escape but suddenly Travis' weight was pinning him down.

"Be a good boy, Theodore."

In the end it was shock that made him lie still. It hurt. A lot. His head kept getting knocked into the wall but he was glad of that, it gave him something to focus on, something other than the breathless sounds Travis was making. The full force of his father's betrayal would hit him hours later as he lay curled up and bleeding. The next morning, after Travis had left for work, Theodore emerged, his eyes sore from crying, his face disturbingly pale. Just when he wanted to be left alone Audrey decided to remain in the kitchen while he ate breakfast, fussing over him in a way she never normally did. It was when she laid a timid hand on his shoulder that he realised she knew. He jumped up as if he had been electrocuted, staring at this woman he had never really seen. The other kids had said things sometimes, Theodore had ignored them thinking it was just talk but Audrey hung her head, unable to meet his eyes, confirming his worst fears. The breakfast Theodore had just consumed reappeared to cover the kitchen floor.

That day was a day of new truths. The first being that his father was more deplorable, more disgusting, more deranged than even his most vehement detractors had managed to convey; the second being that his mother would not or could not protect him; and the third, and the most life changing, was that he now hated them, both of them. What had been done could never be undone, and nothing would ever be the same.

Theodore didn't do his homework that night. Instead he opened the thesaurus, his father's gift, flicking through the pages until he found the word he was looking for.

**Rape** – verb – 1. sexually assault, violate, abuse, ravish, force, outrage

2. pillage, plunder, ransack, despoil, sack, loot, spoilate

He left the thick book open on that page and left the house. The next morning two people would find that their cars had been broken into. Nothing had been taken but every one of the windows was smashed.


	4. Consequences

_Chapter Four_ – Consequences

For Travis Bagwell nothing had changed. He still wanted the best for his son, he still expected him to work hard and achieve the grandest of all ambitions. He did not see his occasional visits to Theodore's bedroom as wrong mainly because he didn't think about them too much. This was the absolute opposite to Theodore, of course, who found it difficult to think about anything else. The secret knowledge he had to carry around was like poison. Bit by bit it ate away at the good parts of him until he felt as if he was a coin with one side burnt black. He found it impossible to commit to his school work, all he saw when he looked at those words on the page was his father. As his grades plummeted, his behaviour outside of school worsened too. Thieving was added to his repertoire and he discovered he had quite a talent for making things disappear but the rush of adrenaline this provided did nothing to assuage his feelings of outrage and shame so he continued to seek new outlets.

The idea came to him when Rowdy, the neighbour's huge tabby cat, came sniffing around while Theodore was sitting out back. He was supposed to be at school but he had taken to playing truant. There didn't seem much point in going to school if he didn't intend to do the work once he got there, besides most of his friends had either given up entirely or missed so many classes that they might as well have dropped out. He hoped one of the teachers would ring home to report his absence, Audrey knew he wasn't where he was supposed to be but she was no use, he needed someone to tell his father that he was skipping school. When Travis was angry, and he would be furious, there was no chance he would be in the mood for anything more than slapping him around. Being hit he could take. Rowdy meiowed in a suspicious sort of way, his green eyes narrowed as if he could see what everyone else had missed. Theodore, who had always liked Rowdy, tempted the creature closer until he was within reach. Rowdy hated being held, he squirmed in Theodore's arms, claws ripping through his clothes, but Theodore did not let go. By the time he was finished with him, the cat was in pieces.

Travis couldn't understand it. Theodore was refusing to attend school, he was out until the early hours, he was often chased home by sirens and had twice been accompanied home by police escort. Pets were disappearing from the neighbourhood and the finger of blame had been pointed firmly in Theodore's direction. He denied all involvement, of course, if he bothered to speak at all. He had taken to collecting knives, Travis had found a whole stash of them under his bed, some of them with extravagant price labels still attached. Seeing his plan hanging by a thread, Travis shouted, he threatened, he got physical, but Theodore was frighteningly contained. Once Travis could have sworn that Theodore had been about to strike him back, the moment had passed but Travis had been so shaken that he had disappeared to the same bar his father had so often frequented to recover. He had returned to find Audrey crying and Theodore missing.

Mrs Fiona Ryan had seen it before. Talented, bright young things full of promise falling in with the wrong crowd and throwing it all away but it was always upsetting to witness. Theodore Bagwell had gone from a hardworking, high achieving student to a sullen, volatile truant almost overnight. He had taken to picking fights at every opportunity and he didn't seem to care whether he won or lost. Fiona had tried to talk to him but far from appreciating the effort Theodore had glared at her as if she was the enemy. Desperate to try and get through to him Fiona tried to schedule weekly meetings but Theodore refused to turn up. Her next step was to phone home and organise a meeting with his father. This turned out to be a mistake.

It turned out that the Bagwells' didn't have a phone line so the next day on her way home Fiona parked her car in the street and walked the short path to the front door. Her husband hated her working in such a rough neighbourhood. Periodically he would search for vacancies in schools in nicer areas and leave the results on her latest pile of marking but Fiona knew the situation at Grove High was precarious. Teachers rarely lasted a full year. There was only so much tyre slashing, bad mouthing and threats that people could take. Fiona felt she had a responsibility to stay, try and help.

The door was opened by a stooped woman with unwashed hair and wide staring eyes that alighted on her visitor only briefly. Fiona guessed that she was looking at Theodore's mother.

"Hello, I'm Fiona Ryan, Theodore's teacher. I was hoping to have a word about his…" Her voice trailed away. Audrey had moved aside slightly, her agitation painfully clear. Behind her stood Theodore, his features obscured by shadows but Fiona knew he was staring right at her. In his hand he held a six inch knife which glinted ominously in the light. Fiona backed down the path, her car keys already in her hand. The next day she handed in her resignation letter. Her husband cracked open a bottle of champagne.

As it happened, Mrs Ryan misinterpreted Theodore's chilling appearance. True, he had intended to use the knife but not on a person and certainly not on the teacher he had hoped would bring his father's wrath down upon him once more. He was angry though, she was right about that, angry that she had got the timing wrong and arrived before Travis got home from work, angry that once again someone who could have helped him had let him down, angry that he had to rely on other people at all. If it hadn't been Mrs Ryan it would have been someone else but it made sense for the police to consider it a deliberate, personal attack, that way he got the maximum possible sentence when he finally went to trial but that was later, several tortured pets and two rapes later.

Theodore decided he had to do something. There was something cathartic about planning something so destructive. He thought about involving his friends, or at least a select few of them, but as he got deeper into the planning he found he didn't want to share his moment with anyone. Besides, it would come to everyone's attention soon enough. Theodore never seriously considered the consequences of his actions. The only thing he cared about was ensuring that his father remained angry for long enough that he would be left the hell alone. And it was beautiful, those bright, orange flames climbing ever higher against the navy blue sky. Even when the sirens started shrieking towards him Theodore stayed watching his handiwork. He saw Mrs Ryan emerge from the house, one arm holding a baby to her chest, another clamped tightly around a toddler. She was screaming. Theodore wondered impassively whether someone was trapped inside but moments later a man he took to be Mr Ryan emerged shepherding two more children. Out of harms way, Mr Ryan put his arms around his family, enclosing them in a cage of his love. Only then did Theodore turn away.

Theodore became a hero and a villain on that day. The police had evidence enough to convict him promising him a none too brief stay in juvenile detention which instantly made him the leader of the petty crooks that he called friends but their respect and adulation could not touch him. There was only one person's reaction he cared about and Travis did not disappoint. Theodore actually thought Travis might kill him this time. He looked crazed, deranged in the way people were supposed to look before they set fire to someone's house or tortured someone's pet cat to death. Audrey saw the look too and threw herself in front of Theodore in an effort to protect him, the only truly motherly act Theodore could remember of her, but he didn't want her help, it was too late for that now. He glared at his father over Audrey's shoulder challenging him. Travis had stared back, fury turning to grief.

"How could you do this to me?" he asked, his voice shaking. Theodore might have asked him the same question.


	5. Alliance

_Chapter Five_ – Alliance

Prison can make or break a man. Juvenile hall, for all its education facilities and child psychiatrists, was a place that made or broke you, it was prison. The first thing Theodore became aware of was that he was not the only one who found being inside a relief. It wouldn't last, of course, there is a reason why wars are fought for freedom, but at first, he was just glad to be separated from his father, that in itself was a kind of freedom. Theodore may have chosen to abandon his studies in the aftermath of his father's betrayal but he was still a quick learner and he soon sussed out who were the big players in this game. Like most correctional facilities, the inmates, removed from their families and the usual groupings of society, formed gangs to compensate. The most powerful gang was run by Johnny, a rough cut, twenty one year old who had beaten a pensioner half to death when he had refused to hand over his savings. At all times he was surrounded by an all white crowd of faithful followers. Together they were known as the Alliance for Purity. Less than a week into his eighteen month sentence for arson and wilful destruction of property, Theodore decided that he wanted in.

"What kind of gay ass name is Theodore? Find a new one."

Those were the first words Johnny said to him. Within a fortnight Theodore Bagwell had shed the name Travis had so proudly given to him.

"T-Bag, is that right?"

Dr James Ladbrook, the psychiatrist assigned to Theodore's case, looked at the mean faced, cold eyed boy sitting slouched in the chair before him. They had weekly meetings in which James was supposed to uncover the reasons for Theodore's destructive behaviour but so far his patient had done nothing but sit across from him staring threateningly across the space between them. James rustled the papers on his desk. Since his last visit two weeks ago, he had been away on holiday with his girlfriend and Theodore, his young charge, had fallen in with the worst gang in the place, a group of hardened young criminals whose aim in life was to rid the world of anyone that did not fit within their white supremacist agenda. Theodore certainly fitted well within their recruitment profile.

"You know that you're headed down a dangerous road, don't you, Theodore?"

Johnny Pike, the leader of the Alliance, would be transferred to Alabama's adult penitentiary before the end of the year where he would serve out the rest of his sentence. Dr Ladbrook suspected that young Johnny, who would be twenty three when he was released, would not refrain from committing the crime he had had failed to execute on his last victim but until he did the system could not keep him incarcerated. James was right, of course. Johnny Pike was convicted just after his twenty fifth birthday of murder in the first degree. He died in prison a year later at the hands of a black inmate becoming a martyr for the Alliance. It was James Ladbrook's job to prevent Theodore suffering the same fate but James had been in corrections long enough to become jaded. He no longer believed that he could make a difference. Some people were born bad, and nothing he or anyone else did would change them. And so it was that another adult shirked their responsibility for Theodore allowing him to become immersed in the criminal culture of Johnny Pike and his associates.

Theodore spent the next few years in and out of juvenile detention, his crimes steadily increasing in severity. Travis watched his boy, the president-to-be, transform into a brutal, twisted teenager. No one seemed able to control him and Travis turned to the bottle for comfort. Sometimes, deep in drunken stupor, he would still believe his plan could work. He would stagger home and slur his way through a speech meant to encourage Theodore to change his ways but invariably he would end up cussing and blaming his son for all the bad that had ever happened to the family. This pattern came to an abrupt end when Theodore smashed one of his empty bottles on the table and held it up between them.

"One more word from you and I'll cut your throat right out."

Travis turned tail and ran. He wouldn't return for three days. Theodore left too with everything he owned determined never to return. His uncle Billy opened the door to him sometime around midnight.

"Finally had enough, eh?"

They were the only words his uncle had to say on the matter. Billy was Travis' half-brother but they might as well have been strangers. They shared a father, one of the many reasons why Theodore's grandmother had drowned herself in booze before he was born. As far as Travis was concerned he didn't have a brother, it was only by accident that Theodore had discovered the existence of his uncle at all. When he was fourteen, he and his friends had decided to investigate a boarded up house that was due for demolition. They were about to break the glass on the only intact window when a voice shouted at them to stop. The others turned and fled, but Theodore stayed behind, he'd just been released from juvie and no longer felt the fear that made the other boys run from danger. He wasn't looking for a fight so much as refusing to back down.

"Oh, it's you."

A man Theodore didn't recognise came into view, a cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. Theodore didn't like the way the man was looking at him, he tensed aware that behind him was a plank of wood he could use as a weapon.

"Relax," said the man through a thick cloud of smoke, "You're Travis' boy, right?"

Theodore scowled.

"I'll take that as a yes. I'm Billy, you're uncle."

Needless to say, Theodore had taken some convincing and even once Billy had managed to proof his claim to family he was never able to get through to the hard eyed child who roamed the neighbourhood like a wild animal, challenging anyone or anything that happened to cross his path. Though Billy and Theodore never struck up any kind of meaningful relationship Theodore often used Billy's house as a refuge when he wanted to disappear from his own home or the cops for a few days. Billy tolerated this sometimes dangerous intrusion without a word because of the effect Theodore had on his own son, James. Jimmy had been a sick child, missing so much of school due to hospital stays that now he was somewhat slow and easily confused. He had a hard time fitting in with the other kids, that is until Theodore showed up. From the first moment Theodore walked into their life, Jimmy idolised his older cousin. Billy had expected Theodore to cast Jimmy off with the same ruthless severity as the other boys, but inexplicably they seemed to strike up a kind of friendship. Billy wasn't stupid, he knew the kind of things Theodore got up to. He had caught him fighting several times, taking on people twice his size, and he had found stolen items, many of them, in Theodore's possession but he could not bring himself to cast out his son's only friend especially when that friend protected his Jimmy and made the lad smile. It wasn't all a one way street, Theodore, who could rarely be persuaded to exchange three words with Billy, could be positively animated with Jimmy when the mood took him. The sound of the two of them laughing was almost as good as the first cigarette of the day. It was that sound that Billy thought of when the time came to do a bit of protecting himself.


	6. Possession

_Chapter Six_ – Possession 

Katie was a notorious slut. When she raised the vodka bottle to her lips she spilt a good quantity down her chin. She was the only girl who wasn't currently paired up so at least four pairs of eyes followed her every move with hungry urgency. In the distance sirens provided the soundtrack. Theodore drifted in and out of the moment vaguely aware that someone was calling his name.

"T?"

"What?"

He turned his head with difficulty, the blurry face of Jimmy coming into view. Theodore blinked to focus his eyes but they refused to comply.

"T, are you ok?"

Jimmy was the only one out of the dozen of them that wasn't drunk or high or both.

"Mmm, I'm fine. Whatdoyawant?"

Jimmy face creased slightly in concern but Theodore was getting annoyed now. Jimmy was pulling him out of pleasurable oblivion. There was nothing he wanted to wake up for.

"Sorry, sorry," said Jimmy quickly, "It's just…I kinda need your help." His eyes flicked over to where Katie was attempting to dance, her limbs jerking out of time to the rhythm in her head. Jimmy was also the only one of them who was still a virgin.

"Uh uh," said Theodore seeing the direction of Jimmy's thoughts, "You're on yer own."

"Oh, come on, T, please," Jimmy pleaded, "I just wanna talk to her."

"Sure you do," smirked Theodore. He tried to stand up but the world span. Jimmy caught his arm.

"Thank you, T. Thank you! I'll do anything for you. Anything you want."

Theodore already knew he would. Jimmy would have walked into a burning building if Theodore had told him too. It would take many years and many betrayals before Theodore realised the rarity of such loyalty. Jimmy really would have done anything for him.

Only dimly aware of the noise level increasing, Theodore made his way towards Katie who looked up at him, a loose smile on her drug-luminous face. When they were about a metre apart, Katie's mouth suddenly dropped open as she screamed. Theodore stared at her, amazed by the sound, his numb brain slow to comprehend what it might mean.

"T, we gotta go!" Jimmy grabbed his arm, spinning him round. The air was suddenly full of shouting and black shadows running in every direction. Jimmy was trying to pull him away, the still screaming Katie forgotten. A white light, as bright as the sun, made Jimmy freeze but Theodore was back in control of himself. He pushed his cousin out of the circle of light. He knew there were too many of them for the police to chase. They would take down four of them as a warning to the rest. Possession was a three month sentence minimum. Hell with that. They were running for the fence they had cut through to get here when Jimmy tripped, landing sprawled on the glass. Automatically, Theodore turned. The cop chasing them slowed, a fatal mistake. The field was littered with bits of wood and metal, scrap that people had dumped. At Theodore's feet was part of an iron beam. In court they would rename it a deadly weapon. All the rage and hatred inside Theodore exploded in the cop's face. When he crumpled, he raised the metal again but Jimmy grabbed his arm again, panic in his face. It was enough to snap Theodore out of it. He dropped the metal and they ran.

When they were far enough away for Katie's screaming to be barely audible Theodore knew it was over. Jimmy was breathing hard beside him, his eyes wide in the darkness. Theodore, on the other hand, was calm. It had been close, and tomorrow he would find out which of his friends he wouldn't be seeing for a while, but there was something intimately satisfying about evading capture. He turned to Jimmy whose teeth were chattering so loudly it was a wonder they didn't shatter.

"Relax, they ain't gonna do nothing to us now. They got their scapegoats."

"T," said Jimmy in an awe-struck whisper, "You saved me."

"Don't be stupid," snapped Theodore. It was only when he looked down that he saw that his hands were covered in blood. Jimmy looked too.

"We gotta get home," he said. Theodore did not argue.

The next day news filtered through that the cop who had been attacked was in intensive care. Some said he was in a coma, others said that he had a fifty-fifty chance of pulling through, everyone had their own opinion on who was responsible. Billy had seen Theodore washing the blood from his hands and had made up his own mind. Even without proof, the general consensus was that Theodore Bagwell was the most likely perpetrator. Neighbours remembered the tortured animals, the stealing, the fire that had almost killed the Ryan-Jones' whole family. Even if it wasn't him, they wanted him to go down for it, all except Jimmy who was beside himself.

"I'll tell him it was me," he said bravely, "It'd be my first offence, they'd be easier on me."

"You ain't going down for no one," said Theodore, "Besides, you wouldn't survive in prison."

Mentally, Theodore was preparing himself for the inevitable return to captivity. He knew it was only a matter of time before they found some piece of evidence they could pin on him. It had been a spur of the moment thing, he hadn't thought about covering his tracks. He should have taken the weapon with him, dumped it later. He should have made sure the son of a bitch died so that he couldn't testify against him. Theodore did not count attacking the man in the first place as one of his mistakes. He wasn't sorry and he damn well wasn't going to pretend he was in front of a jury.

Another Bagwell gave the gossip all his attention. Travis had not given up hope that Theodore might return to the family home, but as the weeks had stretched into months even he had to admit that he didn't seem likely. And now people were telling him that his son had tried to kill a cop. The plan was ruined, unless…

"Audrey, how'd you fancy movin'?"

"M-moving?" Audrey forced out the word which sounded round and slurred in her mouth.

"A fresh start," said Travis, "For you, me and Theodore."

Audrey's eyebrows knitted together and her head began to shake.

"He's a bad boy," she whispered almost to herself, "He's a bad boy."

"We'll get out of here," Travis continued as if he hadn't heard her, "Pick a place where there ain't never been a Bagwell."

"He's bad. A bad boy."

"Are you listening to me, woman?"

"Bad, bad, bad. He's a bad boy."

"We'll start again!" said Travis turning away from her, smiling in triumph, "All of us."

An ability to overlook the glaring problems of a situation and focus single-mindedly on the desired result was a trait Theodore inherited from his father. Unlike Travis, however, Theodore was capable of meticulous planning, sizing up situations so as to change them to his advantage, and above all, he was just as manipulative as Travis had hoped he would be. Still, in moments of heightened emotion, Theodore could still allow himself to be blinded to practicalities just as Travis himself was blinded as he got in his car and drove across town to his half-brother's house. A friend who worked with Billy had told him where Theodore was staying, he had seen Theodore and Jimmy in the front yard when he had dropped Billy off one night.

"Maybe you should leave the boy alone," the friend had suggested tentatively, "Looked to me like he was happy enough." Travis had shown the friend in no uncertain terms what he thought of that idea.

"You boys expecting company?" Billy had seen the car park out front. It was too dark for him to tell whether it was friend or foe. Theodore stiffened. He was at the window in a second.

"It ain't the police," said Billy as he watched the colour drain from Theodore's face.

"I know," said Theodore, "Don't open the door." These words were less of a command, more of a plea.

"Who is it?" Jimmy asked in a terrified whisper, "Who is it, T?"

He soon had his answer. Travis hammered on the front door. He viewed the fact it was locked as a further affront. As if it wasn't bad enough that Billy had taken his son from him (this was how he was choosing to view the situation), now he was holding him hostage.

"Y'all better open up before I call them police."

Inside the house Theodore flinched though they all knew this was an empty threat, Travis was no fan of the law particularly after his numerous warnings about being drunk and disorderly and the small matter of several counts of assault.

"I want my son!" hollered Travis, fists continuing to pound fruitlessly against wood, "Y'all can't hide in there forever."

"He'll tire himself out," said Billy impassively, "Just ignore him." He reached out to lay a reassuring hand on Theodore's arm but Theodore recoiled, a violent shiver passing through him. Billy's lips thinned. He had never asked for an explanation when Theodore had turned up on his doorstep intending to stay and Theodore had never offered one but Billy knew that whatever had gone on in that house had damaged the boy who stood, pale and rigid, beside him.

"We could sneak out back," suggested Jimmy. Theodore ignored him. There were red lights flashing in his head, bright blinding lights. He wasn't going to run. He wanted his father to break down the door. He wanted to face him and give in to the same rage that had made him drive solid metal into a man's face breaking flesh and bone. Let him come. The distinctive one-two of a shot gun being cocked tore through his bloody thoughts. Jimmy was staring slack-jawed at his father.

"I didn't know you had a gun!"

"Move aside, Theodore."

When the front door, Travis was sure his victory was complete. Despite everything that had happened, all the threats and all the pain, he was convinced Theodore would come with him to start a new life. He did not expect to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

"What the…?"

"You ain't gonna come back here, Travis," said Billy with calm authority, "You hear me? You ain't ever comin' back here."

Theodore watched his father collapse from the inside, his face turning grey with comprehension. He staggered to the car, leaving his tattered dreams behind. Billy closed the door behind him and removed the bullets from the gun in plain sight of both boys before leaving them to process what had just happened and draw their own conclusions.


	7. Supremacy

_Chapter Seven_ – Supremacy 

When his father died three years after being chased off Billy's porch, Theodore refused to leave prison to attend the funeral. Jimmy visited him the next day and tried to talk about it but Theodore didn't want the details. His father had died to him long ago; he felt nothing now that he was dead to the rest of the world too. Jimmy bade him a sad farewell. He still blamed himself for not stepping up and confessing to the cop attack despite having had nothing to do with it. Theodore had given up trying to convince him that he had done the right thing, he had even got to the point when sometimes, in the dead of night, when the weight of imprisonment threatened to crush the air from his lungs, he hated Jimmy for having a life outside. For Billy's protection had been short-lived. He had been able to chase off one persecutor but the next lot had guns of their own. Theodore was arrested for the attempted murder of Gary Lowman, a senior police officer who remained in hospital for almost six months. There was evidence, there were even witnesses, his so-called friends looking to reduce their own sentences, providing Theodore with another lesson in the pointlessness of trust, and of course there was Gary Lowman's testimony. All in all, it was a pretty easy case for the prosecution who sought and received the maximum sentence. Seven years in Donaldson maximum security with possibility of parole after five. This possibility was immediately revoked following an incident in the prison cafeteria involving Theodore, a black inmate and a modified food tray. There were plenty of witnesses for that too.

Donaldson was a different breed of incarceration facility to the ones Theodore had grown used to. For a start some of the men around him had no hope of ever stepping outside the walls. Youth and innocence had given way to fury, frustration and the ever present threat of violence. New inmates were all too often subjected to all manners of initiation but not Theodore. His reputation travelled with him and secured him a position within the resident Alliance for Purity gang, the most powerful faction within the prison walls, a position that changed into leadership within a year. No one could touch him. Theodore found that he was uniquely gifted in the arts of recruitment and loyalty assurance. Every time Jimmy came to visit, something he did with touching regularity, he saw a little more of his friend had been replaced by a darkness he could not understand. Theodore's manner, previously so taciturn and distant, became seductively menacing, his words designed to ensnare and enslave. The violence that had required something significant to release it was now barely contained beneath the surface. Sitting across from him Jimmy sometimes caught a look passing between Theodore and another inmate that made his insides freeze. Jimmy may not have liked the changes he saw in Theodore but he could not deny that his friend was thriving in his new environment just as Jimmy, in turn, was thriving in his.

"I got an announcement," he said proudly three years into Theodore's sentence. Theodore had been jumped by a suicidal group of black inmates a couple of weeks back and was still sporting several nasty looking bruises. Three of the perpetrators had not survived the retaliation.

"Me and Katie…we're getting married!"

Theodore laughed.

"Is she pregnant?"

Jimmy's ears began to burn.

"We're waiting until the wedding."

Theodore laughed even harder.

"Hypocritical whore."

"W-what did you just say?"

"I called your girl a whore." Theodore drew out the last word, his soulless eyes fixed on his friend's face as it twisted in pain. Jimmy vowed never to visit again until Theodore apologised. Theodore did not apologise and after three months Jimmy was back. He never mentioned Katie again.

Supremacy became all important to Theodore. He wanted everyone to fear the Alliance and their twisted, fearless leader. There were the odd incidents, like the one mentioned previously, but opposition was crushed so ruthlessly that Theodore soon became the most powerful man within the prison. His rule even threatened the guards who hated and feared him in equal measure. They knew that one wrong move, one step too close to his cell, one mistake, could get them killed. Theodore was no stranger to murder now. Three bodies could be attributed to him (though strangely no one was willing to act as a witness to bring charges down upon him) and countless more people had died on his orders. Searches of his cell guaranteed the confiscation of at least one blade, which his cellmate would invariably take responsibility for whatever the punishment. The guards couldn't touch him.

Theodore began to see people as objects, things to be used then discarded. There were a few fellow Alliance members whose opinion he sought but most of them could burn in hell as far as he was concerned, something they were bound to do sooner or later. He knew how to cultivate a strong sense of allegiance and that to him was more valuable than friendship. After all, his friends had ratted him out and left him here. It didn't take long for Theodore's obsession with supremacy to take a sexual turn. It was a game to him. He would pick one, sometimes the lost one standing alone, sometimes the one who thought he could survive without help, sometimes he went for a member of another gang just for the challenge of it, but not one of them escaped him. Once they were chosen, if they were part of a gang, they usually found that their friends of yesterday willingly abandoned him when it became clear T-Bag was on the prowl. If they weren't part of a gang it was simply a matter of breaking their spirit, something Theodore enjoyed as much as much, if not more, than the sex. Spirit broken, they were used to do his bidding or take the flak when things went south, either way none of them lasted more than a couple of months. Some of them even grew attached to him, convincing themselves that they enjoyed being enslaved. Theodore found these pathetic creatures amusing and useful, they could be counted on to throw themselves in front of the shot to save him. Not until his arrival in Fox River would Theodore ever become even slightly attached to one of his chosen victims.

Seven years passed and a barely recognisable Theodore Bagwell found himself on the other side of the prison gates. Behind him was his kingdom, outside he had nothing. Jimmy came to collect him. Seven years had changed him too. Katie had committed suicide almost two years ago. Shotgun in the mouth, very messy. Jimmy, who really had loved her, refused to let anyone talk him out of taking the blame. He had lost most of his hair in the year after her death, misery etching lines onto his face.

"'course you can live with us," Jimmy assured Theodore, meaning him and Billy "Y'all probably don't want to go back home."

It occurred to Theodore then and only then that he had no idea what had become of his mother.

"Oh, they took her," said Jimmy, shooting a hesitant glance over at his passenger, "She's in some kind of a hospital. I visit her every now and then but she don't say nothing. It's like she ain't there no more."

It should be said that Theodore never made a serious attempt at integrating him back into society. The rules that had kept him alive in prison were no longer permitted and the freedom of Billy and Jimmy's rundown house didn't feel much like freedom at all. And then there was the whispering. People who he had grown up with him avoided him, intimidated by his reputation. Friends of his parents (who seemed to have grown in number now that one was dead and the other incapacitated) blamed him for the fact his father died alone and his mother no longer spoke. Theodore found it difficult to suppress the red lights that threatened to blind him every time he saw someone he recognised. He wanted to kill them all, every last one of them, until his whole history was erased along with them.

Jimmy tried his best to help. He got Theodore a job at the same factory where he worked, he tried to ensure that his friend kept to any court appointments, he even offered to move across state with him so that they'd have a chance for a fresh start but Theodore could not be won over by the good intentions of his cousin. There was a part of him that still valued Jimmy's friendship but it was so buried beneath the barbed wire that chained his heart that the only thing he could do was leave his cousin to live his own life. He left in the middle of the night, taking Billy's car and the money the two of them kept in a jar at the back of the cupboard. The next time they saw him he would be on the news.


	8. Rampage

_Chapter Eight_ – Rampage 

Holly had never been in a court room before. It was smaller than she had expected, more intimate somehow. She had been called up for jury service and the idea had appealed to her, as she said to her boyfriend before leaving the house, it was better than sitting at home bored during the holidays. The second thing she noticed, after the unimpressive nature of the room itself, was that the benches they were to sit on were too thin. Were they really expected to sit and listen for hours? They'd been there for less than ten minutes and already her butt was going numb. She was supposed to be listening, the official looking man was telling them what would happen, what to expect and what they were supposed to do but Holly couldn't help her mind drifting. She felt like she was on the set of a movie. They hadn't been told what case they were going to get but Holly was hoping for something interesting, she didn't think she would be able to stay awake if she was forced to listen to people arguing over tax or property rights. When she was handed the file full of case information her hands were actually trembling with excitement. As it turned out, that moment before she opened the folder and started reading would be the highlight of a very long two weeks.

The murders had shocked the state of Alabama. Six students raped and killed in the most horrific fashion, one after the other, with the police struggling to find a lead or a direction to point their investigation. For a while it had seemed as if the murderer would never be caught, a kind of mass hysteria gripped residents with some students pulled out of college by their parents until the situation was resolved. Holly had endured tearful conversations with her mother in which her distressed parent made her promise never to go anywhere alone and to avoid any of the various locations where the bodies had been found. Holly had promised until she was blue in the face knowing full well that Andy would never have allowed her to go anywhere unaccompanied anyway, her boyfriend was every bit as worried as her mother and just as overprotective. In their rooms Holly and their friends would discuss the latest news reports, each of them claiming to have a connection, however tenuous, with one or more of the victims. None of them knew any of the girls or boys well but suddenly everyone had seen them in the library or walked past them on the stairs, as if doing so somehow increased the interest in the story. When he was caught, Holly thought that would be the end of it. Never did she think that she would find herself in a court room mere metres away from the man who had kidnapped, raped and killed six students. Her hands were shaking for a very different reason now.

"Some of what you will hear will no doubt shock and distress you," the judge told them before the case began, "Both the prosecution and the defence will try to manipulate you but you must stand firm, it is your job to listen and to make a decision based on the evidence that is presented. Your task is not an easy one, and some of you will find it more difficult than others, but it is crucial that you give your full attention to everything you see and hear. It is up to you, ladies and gentleman, to see that justice is done."

Holly tried to keep the judge's words in mind but it was difficult to remain unbiased and critical when the accused sat, cold-eyed and uncaring, in plain view. Even when his crimes were described in such awful detail that the lady beside Holly burst into tears, he remained untouched and distant. It was like he wasn't really with them at all, like this was all some game that he didn't want to play. Holly saw his lawyer glance over at him sometimes, her expression pleading. Give me something to work with, her eyes seemed to say, but Theodore Bagwell could not be induced to show remorse. Even without the forensic evidence, without his extensive list of prior convictions, without anything but the sight of him, sharp featured and hard, Holly would have passed the same verdict. There was nothing innocent about him and if it had been up to her she would have made sure that he never saw the light of day again. The world would be a better place without his kind of evil. Justice would be done.

Theodore didn't know why he had to endure the pantomime that was his trial. Yes, he was guilty. No, he was not insane (not in the clinical put-him-in-the-mad-house sense anyway). His court appointed lawyer, Rebecca Ashton, had told him that his only hope was an insanity plea. Theodore had considered 'hope' an odd choice of word. Did anyone honestly hope to be labelled insane so that they could be drugged and restrained for the rest of their life? Was that really better than prison? Evidently his lawyer was of that opinion because she continually pressed her point until Theodore lost his temper. She didn't come to see him after that. Afterwards, sitting alone in his cell, he wondered whether she had tried to get him to admit to insanity for her own sake rather than his. Maybe Mrs Ashton slept better at night if she was able to believe that the murderers and rapists she defended were psychologically disturbed. Maybe it was easier to fight for them if she thought of them as victims in their own right. As he listened to his crimes read out before him in court, as he heard the testimony from the one who'd got away, as he drank in the contemptuous, fearful looks from the jury, he knew that no one would ever make him a victim again. The judge accused him of showing no remorse but would good was remorse? It wouldn't turn back time, it wouldn't change his family, it wouldn't change the fate he had been given, and it wouldn't save the lives of his victims any more than it would save him.

Theodore expressed no emotion upon sentencing. Life plus one, they were just words, their meaning disconnected. He saw his lawyer smile weakly to the judge, her defeat gratefully acknowledged. Theodore looked to his left at the jury who had made their decision in what had to be record time. Despite their tired, grey faces they looked relieved, happy to have the whole sorry business come to an end. Theodore felt like he could read their thoughts, all of them thinking he was a devil and wanting to get as far away from him as possible - take him, lock him up, turn off the light, throw away the key – but Theodore knew it wasn't far from the jury bench to the cage in which he sat. Maybe next time it would be their turn. A girl, no older than the students he had killed, looked up suddenly as if he had called her name. Their eyes met. For five seconds they remained connected before she looked away, a violent shiver passing through her body. She could have been his next victim and they both knew it.

His lawyer came to see him after it was all over. She stood the other side of the bars in her smart black suit, the dark circles under her eyes only just visible under her artfully applied makeup. Slowly she raised her eyes to meet his. Theodore could almost feel her relief as she looked at him for the last time.

"I'm not going to say I'm sorry for the verdict," she said bluntly.

"Why would you?" Theodore asked softly. Rebecca's brow furrowed.

"Judge Kessler was right. You're not sorry, are you?"

Theodore inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly before fixing his eyes on the lawyer's brown orbs. What was it that she saw that made her step back? She sucked in a harsh breath, it was the first time she had let him get to her, maybe the first time she had allowed herself to think about the crimes that had sent him back to prison for life. When she raised her hand to her neck, did she feel her pulse beneath the skin? Could she imagine how it felt to close her hand around someone's throat, their pulse slowing as they choked on a silent scream?

"I just want to know one thing," she whispered, her face pale.

"What?" Theodore asked, the question lingering on his tongue lazily.

Rebecca lowered her hand, her face rearranging itself into a professional mask.

"Why?" she asked in her clipped court room voice, "I just want to know why."

Theodore thought of the six pack he had placed in the river to cool and the moment he had come across those same six cans being consumed by six college kids, too used to getting everything they wanted to even consider that taking was wrong. Well, they wouldn't be taking anything from anyone any more.

"I just want to know why."

Theodore slid his tongue between his teeth.

"Wouldn't we all?"

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading! :)


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